weight

That was my conversation with my doctor. I am always aware of my weight, just as I am my hair color and complexion. But I never really felt bad about it. I used to be small and now I am big. Still the same person. And I don’t mind being fluffy.

But now I have a doctor telling me that the surgery to reattach my intestines will go a lot easier if I lose some weight. And poor eating habits (a diet very low in fiber) may be what got me into this debacle. So maybe I do need to eat healthier. I don’t want to lose a lot of weight, but even 20 or 30 pounds would probably make things easier for the doctor, prolong my life, and prevent this from happening again.

To that end I am making some changes. I went to the grocery store today and I got Caesar salad kits, pre cut broccoli and cauliflower, apples, grapes, and high fiber granola bars. Tonight, for the first time in my life, I ate salad for a meal. It was actually enjoyable, although I admit that I missed lasagna. But I’m still going to eat lasagna and other types of pasta. I’m not going to deprive myself. It’s just that for some of my meals I’m going to substitute oatmeal or salad or broccoli in for some of the unhealthy foods that I usually eat. This should slowly but surely bring my weight down.

I am also going to order this special contraption that turns a regular bike into an exercise bike. That way I can start getting some exercise in the house. My foot never got better and surgery didn’t correct the problem, so I still can’t go on the long walks that I miss so much. I have a bike sitting in the garage that I bought this past summer, but I have found that I don’t like riding my bike in Moyock with people driving around me going 55 miles an hour. It scares me and I have to be so alert that I can’t even listen to music while I ride. However, it’s a nice bike and I would like to make use of it so this may be the perfect solution. And I can buy some sort of machine or Fitbit that tracks calorie burn. I will play music from my computer and just enjoy challenging myself to see how far I can go.

Change is a difficult process for everyone, and I am sure I will be no exception. But I am open to the process. I figure if I can find healthy things to do and eat that I actually like I am more likely to stick with this lifestyle change. I like food I bought today it just isn’t as sweet or cheesy as I am used to. Normally I hate salad but what I did was I got a Caesar salad kit instead of a regular salad and I found that I actually like the Caesar. I like the dark romaine lettuce and I like the Caesar dressing. If I have to force myself to eat salad I didn’t like all the time it probably wouldn’t work out. It’s hard to force yourself to do something you detest for extended periods of time. But by branching out and finding a salad I like I have insured that I will continue to eat salad. Same with the granola bars. I picked caramel granola bars. I know since they’re sweet I’ll eat them but they’re also high fiber bars so I’m getting some good nutrition out of them. This way I’ll actually eat those instead of letting them rot on my pantry shelf as I am wont to do when I end up not liking a food. If I like the exercise bike it won’t be such a chore to get on it. And if I can just listen to music and enjoy myself it may even become something I look forward to doing. When I was younger I used to ride my bike every night for one to two hours. It kept me thin in spite of my extremely bad eating habits! If I coupled eating healthy with exercising over the next six months until my next surgery I could be a world healthier than I am today.

Lately I’m not totally happy with my weight. It isn’t that I want to be thin again. I don’t really. I’d rather eat what I want and be fluffy. I even like being fluffy. I think it suits me more than being skinny. I have disproportionately large breasts, so being skinny just makes me look a little weird in my opinion, like a snake that swallowed two watermelons. But I’d love to be about 20 pounds lighter. I’m definitely more than 20 pounds heavier than slim, but I’d like to lose 20 pounds. I was supremely happy with my weight at 175/180. I like plus size clothes, but I miss having the option to wear regular size clothes. I’m a size 18, so I’m one size too big to shop in regular departments. Gone are my days of shopping at Macy’s.

The problems are these: I like food, I’m on heavy psychiatric medication, i have hypothyroidism, and I cannot do my old favorite forms of exercise very much. I used to be really in to walking and for the past year or more I’ve been unable to really take a good long walk because of my problems with my foot – problems two foot surgeries have not fixed. Walking was my favorite form of exercise. I used to go on nightly one hour walks, with a little bit of running thrown in.

I need to find a new form of exercise. I’m thinking of swimming, but I don’t have a pool and it is time consuming to drive to the pool. Plus, the pool lap swimming hours don’t work with my schedule. I’d love a trampoline to jump on, but we are moving to military housing in January when we go to Colorado and I don’t think trampolines are allowed there – and it isn’t worth the money to buy one for just one summer and fall. And honestly, I’m not sure how much impact my foot can really take. My problem tends to be more with bending my foot than putting impact on it, but impact hurts too.

Then I think I could count calories again, but I don’t miss the days of my life where I counted calories. It was miserable. I don’t want food, or the lack of it, taking up that much space in my head. I don’t want to count everything I eat. Still, if I want to get back in to size 16s or 14s I need to eat less and move more.

Why does size matter? Why can’t they make the same clothes in all sizes? And why do I put this pressure on myself? Society tries to put pressure on me, but I don’t read fashion magazines anymore and I’m old enough to pay no mind to the tv, so I don’t know if that is where the pressure is coming from. My husband doesn’t put pressure on me and loves me the way I am.

Am I really unhappy with my weight or am I unhappy with something else? Sometimes unhappiness about other areas of myself manifests in unhappiness with my weight. Even when I was skinny I was miserable about my body because I was miserable about other things. So how do I separate my feelings about my body from my feelings about other things? How does one love their body the way it is and yet try to change it at the same time?

I can’t put pressure on myself to lose weight, or I’ll go too far. You’d never know it to see me now, but I used to have two eating disorders. I’m an obsessive person by nature. Calorie counting becomes the focus, vomiting becomes regular. I don’t ever want to go back to that. But why is it that sometimes I can love myself the way I am and other times I can’t? How do you lose weight without dieting? How can I enjoy life and enjoy the foods that I like while still making sure I don’t go up a dress size? And why am I not good at this balance? Being size 18 is not bad, but I’d like to be a 16 or a 14, and I don’t want to go up to a 20 as I get older.

How can I get happy with my weight again, either by losing weight or by loving myself as I am?

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Hi! I’m Lisa, and I’m glad you’re here. I’m a Christian wife and mother who loves to live creatively. Please say hi, and if you comment please leave a link to your blog if you have one. I’d love to drop by and visit you!